But it IS too hot . . .

She could have been in hospital with Prince Phil who was taken in last night.

I can just imagine his reaction if she was: “Bugger off you stupid woman and go to the races”

The Elgin Marbles are worth 15 minutes of your time and they’re quite near the entrance.

Have a quick look at them before we give them back.

Brave New World by Auldous Huxley.

The blurb about it tends to assume its a critique of utopianism. But it seemed fairly utopian to me.

And the Culture novels, obviously.

Before long, we will all begin to find out the extent to which Brexit is a gentle stroll along a smooth path to a land of cake and consumption.

😀 what kind of cake?

Just came across this on a primary school education site. For some reason I thought of this thread.

Why did the government issue ration books?

To make sure that everybody got a fair share of the food available.

The government was worried that as food and other items became scarcer, prices would rise and poorer people might not be able to afford things. There was also a danger that some people might hoard items, leaving none for others.

Rationing was introduced to make sure that everyone had a fair share of the items that were hard to get hold of during the war

Hammond on the BBC a couple of hours ago:

Mr Hammond said the UK still planned to leave the single market and customs union despite calls for a rethink from business

So its still full speed ahead.

he talks about maybe having tariff free trade with the EU, but that’s not the same thing.

This implies that the victims not only did something ‘wrong’ but that they somehow deserved it. I’m not aware that they did.

“Revenge” implies that the nutter who drove the van thought his victims did something wrong.

This is either “terrorism” or a “hate crime”. I’m not sure of the difference between the two, but I suppose there must be one.

From what we can make out they swapped houses with some relatives, who went to live in a smaller property on a nearby farm.

Are the houses privately owned, or are they housing association tenants? If its housing association it might be worth having a word with them about anti-social tenants.

So where are these trousers made?

I met a chap once who made pattern welded swords. These were the sort used by Anglo Saxon nobles and Viking chiefs. They are easily spotted as have a kind of double herringbone line up the length of the blade.

Apparently pattern welded blades are just as good as Japanese swords and require just as much craftsmanship to make. I wouldn’t know, but a newly polished one was a thing of beauty. No wonder the Anglo Saxons used to write poems about them.

But a Fitbit isn’t trying to be a GPS, just like a GPS doesn’t make a good fitness tracker.

Quite right, they are very good at recording activity. But OP asked about recording mileage. Just pointing out they aren’t particularly accurate at doing that.

Mrs SWSD has the Garmin version of the fitbit (can’t remember what its called). Its good for recording activity (ie. the number of steps taken) but its not that accurate at recording distance, at least not compared to a proper GPS.

Over 10 miles it can be as much as a mile out.

Explorers like Amundsen used eat their huskies over the course of a long journey.

I wonder what they taste like.

Yes Corbyn did well over the last few weeks and did at least have some policies. But he is a long, long way away from what Tony Blair managed.

But Tony Blair was a Tory. You should be comparing Corbyn to what Foot and Kinnock achieved.

90 – MTB wheelsize researcher

My butler goes to Waitrose for my shopping.

Poor you. Can’t you afford a housekeeper as well?

So how will those allow me to buy a house?

Is that the only thing that is important to you?

Please detail these things for us, I am pleased not to have typhoid but what else,

Well, aside from all the things already mentioned above, how about the benefit of modern attitudes to equality and diversity? Or the benefit modern attitudes to health and safety or the environment?

How about “This generation is the first since the war that will be financially worse off than it parents”?

Now all you have to argue about is what “generation” you’re talking about.

And then decide if being financially worse off is out-weighed by all the things for which this generation is better off.

Sorry but there isn’t

Sorry but there is. A woman born in 1955 will have spent most of her life being told she would receive a state pension at age 60. She will have made life and career decisions based on that fact.

Now she is told wait to 66. In effect she has been lied to.

Reckon I’ve got less so as I’ve gotten older.

So many deaths of friends, colleagues and relatives to deal with. And if not death, so much long term illness or mental trauma. Witnessing the breakdown of so many apparently stable and happy relationships.
Realising it won’t get any better and there’s no way out (unless you believe in silicon heaven).

Realising that one day, no matter how much you care for them, this is all going to happen to your children.

If you let it all get to you, you might as well put a gun to your head. If you don’t, you end up with a “shit happens, get used to it” attitude.

Goes baggy when wet, doesn’t wear well

Not in my experience, but perhaps true in the 1950s.

Also add – comfortable to wear, warm when wet, doesn’t need a base layer, doesn’t stink after 5 minutes.

Polyester washes easier and the separate base layer supposedly offers some crash protection, but I much prefer wool or a wool mix. (Not necessarily Rapha).

I even use merino bibs (again not Rapha) – now they ARE expensive (and hard to get hold of).

What happens when the next doping scandal emerges? Will they be re-setting the records every few years or so?

Also wool is a crap material for jerseys.

I beg to differ.

A decently constructed flagpole in a well tended garden owned by an eccentric old gent might make me more likely to make an offer.

Hot tubs, on the other hand . . .

They gave their ‘human rights’ up when they took away their victims’.

why is this the case?

Unless you believe in a supreme being who has imposed an ultimate moral code, humans have no rights. All we have is a set of moral values (invented by humans) that most humans agree to live by.

Could it not be the case that granting human rights also imposes human obligations, and in breaking those obligations one forfeits ones human rights?

Something doesn’t quite add up about the chemical weapons attack.

I wouldn’t underestimate the possibility for cock-ups, especially given the fog of war. I’m sure Assad doesn’t plan or even approve every mission, and he certainly doesn’t supervise arming the aircraft. I suppose Its perfectly possibly that some local commander overstepped the mark.

Technicalinept, Google urban area over unpopulated area of UK landmass. We ain’t overcrowded by a long Chalk. Another myth to feed the weak minded

Oh yes we **** are.

Another oversimplified argument to make the hand wringing, guardian reading socialist elite make themselves feel “oh so superior”.

I seem to remember that, back in the cold war, somebody in NATO was trying to develop a lazer that could be used to permanently blind tank crews. (back in the days when they looked through periscopes. I suppose its all TV screen nowadays)

There was a huge fuss in the press as this was seen as far too barbaric. Presumably it was thought far more humane just to blow them up.

The only rattling of (rusty) sabres has been on this end.

Both sides have been rattling rusty sabres over this for years. Brexit is just another excuse to get all frothed up about it.

Unless they’re really worried about the effect of having a miniscule land border with a non-EU country

Gibraltar isn’t in the Customs Union so Spain already has a land border. I think Spain has used this to cause difficulties for the Gibraltese in the past?

I know defra were looking at more staff to administer the replacement for the CAP

Well as there is no replacement for the CAP yet, I imagine this is contingency planning. Another figure I hear was 300 extra customs staff if we stayed in the single market up to 3000 staff in the event of a full on “hard” Brexit. But this is all still just “think of a number”.

You have to take this in the context of shrinking government departments, which has been government policy for years. It possible that you need more staff in certain areas, but overall a department will still be smaller and cheaper in the future than it was in the past.

well how much is the ministry for Brexit costing?

I wasn’t talking about up the cost of working out how to leave the EU (probably high), just that we won’t have to “duplicate” anything much to run post Brexit UK. The UK civil service has been running this bit of the EU for years.

One civil service for 28 countries, well we have to duplicate the lot. how much will that cost?

Eh? More like 28 separate civil services, all with their own agendas, who are occasionally asked to form some sort of overarching set of rules or policies. And then go about implementing them all in their own separate ways.

Its not like everything was a bed of roses before the referendum. The country was in a shit state and getting shitter (from my perspective).

Will Brexit alter that decline? Probably not. But staying in the EU probably wouldn’t either.

So yeah, I’m not sure about all the hatred expressed on this thread.

Stop worrying. it’ll all be fine. After all, we have a plan

plan for britain[/url]

Sorry, what’s this got to do with Pandas?

Depends on what websites you’re browsing

Or you could say what I did and not tweak it to suit your message? In case you couldn’t read it all, I am not from the U.K.

I don’t have a message, just making the observation there is a shortage of public sector staff in the UK and it going to get worse.

Its that attitude you demonstrate that will leave here in major crisis in the not too distant future – good luck

What attitude might that be?

NHS going to pot and insulting pay rises all factors.
I would categorically discourage anyone from doing the training now and would not do it myself – paying how much per year for the priviledge of being free staff in wards while training? No thanks.
Give it a few years and it will be doomed.

I think you could almost say the same for teaching. Only I don’t think we recruit many teachers from overseas.

But if you don’t have enought staff, pay ought to rise (eventually). i just doubt it’ll happen in our time.